With the Dawn
by Mirrordance
Summary: Ken visits an old friend in a graveyard and instead meets up with an old enemy…Nagi.


Author: Mirrordance

e-mail: mirror_dance@hotmail.com

Title: With the Dawn

Type: One-shot

Warnings: language, angst

Spoilers: with references to the entire series

Teaser: Ken visits an old friend in a graveyard and instead meets up with an old enemy…Nagi.

Keywords: Ken, Nagi, Kase, Tot, angst

"With the Dawn"

a WKff by Mirrordance

don't own anyone…

* * *

"I used to love the night for its silence, all those shapes without shadows, the looks of strangers you never catch during the daytime.  It's as if two separate worlds share the same city without knowing each other, without imagining the existence of the other.  So many people come out at night and disappear with the dawn.  No one knows where they go..."

--p. 47-48, "If Only It Were True" by Marc Levy

* * *

      I circled the block twice before parking my motorbike in front of the shop.  And I didn't remove my helmet until I was safely inside either.

      For all my caution, it almost felt like a mission.  But it was the daytime, and there was no enemy except the ones I made up in my head.

      It was a nice flower shop, if only it wasn't so rundown.  Unlike our own prosperous Koneko, the shop called Flora's was a bit ill-kept, and except for the middle-aged lady behind the counter and myself, it was empty.

      As the glass door slid close behind me, the sounds of the world outside became muffled.  My footsteps as I looked around the shop for the right kind of flower seemed particularly loud.  

      Or maybe I had just gotten used to the hustle and bustle of the Koneko, ever-alive with feminine chatter.  In comparison, you could hear a needle drop in this place.

      "Well, well" the lady said, looking me over.  "Isn't this the bane of my existence"

      "Excuse me?" I asked, looking behind me for whomever she might be referring to.  Of course there was nowhere else there.

      "You," she said irritably, "before you flower boys came into town I was so much more successful in this business.  Now look at this place.  It's falling apart.  No customers, so no money for repairs and barely enough for food.  No profit, no good flowers.  No good flowers, even less customers.  It's one hell of a vicious cycle"

      "Well," I tell her with a helpless grin, "I won't apologize"

      "I hardly expected you to," she sighed, "It's a cutthroat business.  Why, if I were a few years younger, I'd have men lined up around here too, like those girls hound your place.  So.  What can I do for you?"

      "I want to buy some flowers," I tell her plaintively.  What else?

      "You pulling my leg, son?" she asked, studying me from the brim of her thick glasses.  "You come to gloat? Look at this place! You could have all the pretty little flowers you want from where you come from.  I've seen that place.  I went there to see what the fuss was about and why I was losing customers"

      "Are you complaining?" I challenge her, "I could always go somewhere else"  
      "Wait, wait, wait," said the lady thoughtfully, "Lemme guess.  Your flowers have some kind of a toxic effect, right? So you sell it and make good money out of it but wouldn't use 'em yourself, right?"

      "No…" I say with a laugh.  "That's not it"

      "Hm…" she murmured, then her eyes lit up as she came up with a brand new theory.  I half-expected her to yell 'Eureka!.'  

      "I know!" she said instead, looking as enlightened as Aristotle must have.  "you have a secret girlfriend, don't you? A forbidden romance.  You want to give her some flowers but you don't want to discourage your predominantly female customers! Ha, ha! No, wait!

      "Better yet!" she continued, "you're going to give it to your BOYFRIEND, aren't you? Ha! I'll expose you! I'll get customers for sure!"

      I just laugh at the lady.  "Yeah, yeah.  Are you going to sell me flowers or what?"

      She sighed dejectedly.  "Just take your pick, boy.  Not much in here, as you can see.  Not like your place"

      "They're not so bad," I lie as I look around, hesitant to admit openly that she's right.  These were second-class blooms and it made me sad for her.  I got too used to the Koneko's hothouse hybrids.

      My eye caught some terrific blooms, however.  Lotuses.

      "These are great," I tell her, "I'll have those"

      "Of course they're great," she said disdainfully, putting the bouquet together, "they grow in mud.  Mud is cheap"

      I knew that.  I've been in this business long enough to know that. 

      "But it changes nothing," I argue, "They're still beautiful"

      She grunted, but I could tell she agreed.  She handed me the bouquet and I paid for it, with a tip too.

      "Well, I'll go now," I tell her.

      "Hey," she calls as I turn on my heel, "can I tell people that you're gay? Just so I could keep this place afloat?"

      "Tell them what you want," I say, "but I think that would be a mistake.  First, because most of the girls would be in denial and just think you're making it up.  Second, the Koneko would gain even MORE business when not only women but gay men would come in too.  Think about it"

      "You gonna tell me why you came to my place?" she asked, "I'd really want to know.  If it were for pity I'd kick your ass"

      "No," I said, "I just…wanted to evade some questions that were bound to come out" From my friends, that is.  I didn't care what the girls said or thought.  But my teammates would have questions I'd have a hell of a lot of trouble trying to evade.

      "Know what else I think?" she said, "damned if I don't like you, boy.  But I have a three-year-old son.  When he grows up, we'll kick your pretty ass for sure"

      "I'll wait for it, Flora" I tell her with a laugh, stepping out of her shop and into my bike.

      And to think this was supposed to have been a sad day for me.

      The sun was hiding behind the clouds today, telling of possible rain.  I didn't mind rain.  I loved the way it just fell on everything, indiscriminately.

      I rode my bike, wanting the wind, which was picking up due to my speed and the weather, to slap on my face and ruffle my hair; but the helmet of course, was a necessity.  And I hardly wanted to die in a wreck.  There were things to do, still.  And deaths that hurt much, much less.

      I pulled up on a corner of the large cemetery, just as another kid on a scooter parked behind me.  I hardly spared him a glance as I gathered my thoughts, making my way step by step towards the grave of the man I had once considered my friend and my brother.  

      But the kid was following me, and I was starting to get irritated, despite the fact that it had crossed my mind that perhaps we were just both coincidentally heading in the same direction.  

      I looked at him from the corner of my eye; he was carrying an umbrella in one hand and a bouquet of deep red roses in the other; not the best I've seen, but roses are daunting in almost any form.  He was wearing old jeans and a faded sweatshirt as well as a cap over his face.  I could see some of his apparently too-long auburn hair sticking out by his ears.  He reminded me of someone, I thought for a fleeting moment.

      I stopped on the more scenic side of the cemetery, on a low hill under an old, leafless tree.  He stopped too.

      "Hey kid," I snap, "whatcha trying to pull?"

      He pulled off his cap and met my eyes squarely.

      I knew that face.  It was a face I'd rather forget, but couldn't afford to.

      "Is it against the law to go to a cemetery now, Weiss?" he sneered.  Nagi Noe.  The kid with the old eyes.  

      Would Schwarz kill me here? Did they sink that low?

      "What are you doing here?" I ask him, falling to a stance of preparedness.  It must have looked silly, me armed with my lotuses.  

      "Visiting the dead," he replied flatly, motioning for the gravestone he stopped before.  I dared not look at anything but him.  "Just like you"

      "Oh, really?" I ask sarcastically.  

      "Yeah," he answers, seemingly not threatened by me as he placed the flowers on the grave.  "I'd rather not be but… well…"

      I relaxed a little at the sadness I heard in his voice, but couldn't let my guard down completely.  Schwarz is skilled in deception.

      I placed my own bouquet on the ground by Kase's gravestone.  It's not that I was loosening up; I wanted my hands free in case he tried something.

      Like fools, the two of us stood in front of gravestones placed side by side by fate.  I watched him and he watched me and the both of us pretended to be saying our prayers for our dead or talk to them in our heads or whatever it is living people do when they think they could be heard by someone who's no longer around or they need to vent out.

      I muttered a curse, which naturally caught his attention completely, no longer covert.  

      "What was that?" he murmured.

      "Don't tell me I was disturbing your prayers," I moan, "don't you dare.  We both know this is some stinking game"

      He had the audacity to smile at me.  Typical of them.

      "You're right," he says, "Why don't you leave now?"

      "Me?!" can you believe this guy? "Why don't you leave? I can't do what I'm supposed to do while you're here"  
      "Well neither can I," he said smugly.  "I'm not going anywhere"  
      "Fine," I say, crossing my arms over my chest and looking at Kase's gravestone.  Well, buddy.  Here I am.  Still alive.  Still unpacked for my trip to hell.  You're still…there.  I want to tell you so much more, but there's this bastard beside me…

      "What if I say please?" I ask Nagi, "THEN would you go?"  
      "No," he said, "I have as much right to be here as you"

      Kid's got a point.  But I wish we'd take turns.  I just couldn't concentrate on Kase when I have this Schwarz guy standing beside me.  This is not at all how I'd imagine this day would go.

      I sighed, tried to think of Kase but instead finding my eyes drift towards the gravestone beside his, trying to read the name of the person the kid was visiting.  I mean, he's Schwarz! You hardly ever think of the possibility that he may actually have a mother or a sister or a father or a brother or a girlfriend…

      "If you ask," he said with a tight smile, "I'll tell you"

      I wouldn't give him the satisfaction—oh, screw it.

      "Who's that?" I ask him.

      "You've met her before," he replied, knowing I would know the answer by that alone.  And I sure as hell did.  This was Tot, the killer-umbrella girl.  It couldn't have been anyone else, with Nagi hanging around like this.

      "I thought she survived," I say quietly.

      "Well, there were complications," he said, glancing over at the gravestone I was visiting.  "Who's that?"

      "My best friend," I say automatically.  I've been accused of having a selective memory; it shouldn't hurt.  I would rather recall him as the man who had always been by my side and died trying to help me, than the resurrected version who said all of it was a lie, the same resurrected version that I myself had killed.

      "How did she die?" I ask him.

      "I'm not sure," he answered with a small, sad laugh.  "Would you believe me if I told you I think she died of loneliness?"  
      "I wouldn't," I tell him, "No one dies of that"

      Else I'd be dead by now too.

      "How did he die?" Nagi asked me, nodding toward Kase's grave.

      I weighed my options.  I decided on a lie, then decided on a truth, then just let my tongue go.  It didn't matter anymore.  This was my enemy; who cared what he thought of me?

      "I killed him," I reply.  No explanations.  Just let him mull it over.  I don't care what he thinks, I don't care what he thinks.

      "Well there must have been good reason," he said after a moment of silence.

      For some strange reason, his reply tugged at a sore spot in my heart.  It irritated me that he could do that.  Eventually, the anger overrode the sadness.

      "Yes, there was," I say tightly, wanting to end the conversation and wanting him to leave me alone at last.  How much words could one demented kid say to a dead demented kid anyway? 

      Please, please leave now…

      "Have you told him everything you've come to say?" Nagi asked.

      "No," I snap, "mostly 'cos you're here"

      "Do you have to talk to him out loud?" pressed Nagi.

      "I'm not sure," I admitted.

      "So you aren't at all sure he could hear you?" he asked, disbelieving.

      "Yeah, I'm not sure," I tell him.

      "So what's the point?" he asked.

      "Maybe," I answer, "it's not that he needs to hear them.  I just need to say them.  What's with the questions, Schwarz?"

      "Just curious," he answered, "I've been asking that myself"

      "Which part?" I inquire wryly.  He DID have a lot of questions, you know.

      "What the point was," he answered.

      I look at the gravestones.  Tot and Kase.  Never thought I'd place those names in the same sentence.  But who'd have thought I would be standing beside a megalomaniac in the middle of a cemetery and actually find peace? This day is SO not turning into what I thought it would.

      "You believe in God, Weiss?" Nagi asked.

      I thought about it.  "Sometimes"

      "When?"  
      "Only when I need to"

      "When's that?"

      "Christ, kid," I mutter, "there is something seriously wrong with you"

      "Stop calling me kid," he says, "you are NOT that MUCH older than I am"

      "Sometimes it feels like an eternity," I tell him.  Other times it feels like a nanosecond.  Like now.  I wanted to call him kid because it set us apart.  I WOULD NOT be likened to my enemy.  I would not.

      "You believe in Heaven?" he asked.

      "Only when—"

      "—you need to," he finished for me, "yeah, yeah.  I know.  It doesn't look like we'll get very far along that line of questioning"

      "We won't get far on ANY line of questioning," I snap.  "Aren't you satisfied already? Go home, think of another way to rule the world or something"

      "That's not funny"

      "Now we're being overly sensitive"

      "Weiss," said Nagi, sounding exasperated.  It made me feel as if I was the kid and he was the adult, tsk-ing at my brand new misdemeanor.  "I really have to know.  Do you think they can hear us?"  
      "What does it matter?" I ask him in frustration, "By the time they die, they'll know everything anyway"

      "But I want her to hear me say it"

      "Then say it!" I tell him, "just in case"

      I fall silent and pretend not to watch as he hesitantly falls to his knees in front of the gravestone.  He touches the engraved letters of a name gently, reverently.  His mouth moved and it wasn't anything I thought I would hear.  It was so soft, so heartfelt, like a prayer.  But as I saw his mouth form the words meant solely for her, my mind supplied the echo in my head.

      "I love you," he said shakily.

      I tore my gaze away and pretend I hadn't seen a thing.  It was so much better that way… if I just pretend, nothing would have to change between us.

      A bolt of lightning in the near horizon was followed by the roar of thunder.  The wind picked up, whistling.  I could hear leaves softly rustling, though am pretty sure it hadn't come from the poor excuse for a tree—and shelter, above our heads.  The rain fell slowly at first; these big fat droplets from the sky.

      Nagi had popped open his umbrella and inched closer to me.  He was pretending he wasn't sharing his shelter with me, and I was pretending I didn't notice.

      We stood that way for a fraction of an eternity, saying nothing, afraid to move lest I jog his elbow or something weird and embarrassing like that.  Under the rain, beneath an umbrella good for just one person, fools again together.

      But it was stupid.  The two of us were getting wet anyway.  Either one of us used it and stayed dry, or we both end up getting wet anyway.  The umbrella was just too inadequate.  

      Against my will, I started to shiver.  I get cold fast, because I was always under the sun.  While I loved rains and harsh winds, I loved the heat and warm breezes even more.

      Then he moved, as if to leave.

      "I'm going now," he announced, "I have some place to be"

      "Of course," I sneer, "the world can't wait for you to take it over"  
      "You shouldn't be so snide," he said casually, "You don't know much about us"

      "What little I know," I tell him, "I dislike"  
      Which would have been a lie.  But who cares? Most of the things we've been saying to each other had been a lie anyway.

      "Well you must be some kind of a real sad guy," he said casually, making me even more annoyed.  "But that's good.  Because no matter what transpired here today, it changes nothing about when we meet in a battle"

      "Exactly as I thought," I agree.

      "I will fight you 'til I die," he vowed.

      "As will I"  
      "Good."

      "Perfect."

      He nodded, accepting the conditions of what had been a short-lived truce.  It's so funny how the world makes so much more sense in a place strewn with bones and lifeless bodies underneath six feet of soil topped with a heavy headstone.  

      We weren't enemies here at all.  We were…intruders.  The voices in a black space, undeserving of a battle in a field which wasn't our own.  There were other battles here that belittled ours.  

      It was strange how everything you've come to believe in became nothing in the face of greater things.  Like life and death and love and hatred, etched in marble and hidden beneath the names of dead, loved people.

      "So you'll be staying here some more?" he asked thoughtfully.

      "Yeah," 

      "You can have the umbrella," he said it like a royal decree, chin up and emotionless eyes.  He did that so I wouldn't get embarrassed over his assistance, so I wouldn't feel as if I owed him anything.

      But because I knew that, I declined.

      "You'll have to use it going home," I reasoned.

      "You'll be out here longer," he argued.

      "Afraid I'll catch pneumonia and keel over and die?" I ask morbidly.

      "I'm not afraid of anything," he snapped, "don't be an ass and take it"

      "I'm okay," I lied, praying my teeth wouldn't chatter 'til he left.  "I'm warm.  I'll live to kill you some other day"

      "Give me your hand," he ordered.

      I instinctively pulled it further way from him.  "No way"

      "I'm not going to cut it off"

      "Yeah, you'll just take a nice, healthy bite, won't you?"

      "Hand," he commanded, and I felt it raising against my will.

      "Not fair!"

      He held my hand in his smaller, gentler one.  It was like Ran's; smooth and feminine, almost.  Clean, white hands that looked as if it had nothing to do with killing.

      "See?" he said triumphantly, "you're shaking.  You're not as warm as you're leading me to believe"

      He put the umbrella in my hand and closed my numb fingers on the handle before turning to leave.

      I couldn't move until he was too far away for me to catch up with.

      "And you," I say quietly, "aren't as cold"

      Umbrella in hand, I look at Kase's grave.

      It's been three years since I killed him, and since he was placed here I've been coming annually, to allow myself…time to do what it was I thought I'd do.

      Now that I'm back, I've forgotten what it was I wanted to say.

      And it hardly mattered.  Isn't that strange? 

      I've made friends and I've made enemies.  I've made some friends INTO enemies and some enemies INTO friends.

      I clutch tightly at the umbrella in my hand.  If it wasn't for this, I wouldn't have believed that Nagi had been real and had been beside me.  It was like some kind of a misplaced dream.  Who would have thought?

      This day is SO not what I thought it would be.

      And to think this was supposed to have been a sad day for me.

THE END

January 1, 2000

NOTES:

1. The title came from the quote from the Marc Levy novel "If Only It Were True."  It's like, you know a person during the night and never find them in the morning because they vanish With The Dawn.  It's like the mystery that surrounds the identity of a person, with its many facets.  So any ooc-ness can be justified my saying, "Hey! Who knows!" (which is lame,, but I couldn't think of anything else)

2. Sorry about any ooc-ness.  And for a distorted storyline.  Or a boring one.  I wrote this in less than a day, so be merciful.

3. c&c's would be appreciated.  Sorry it isn't so good.  When I think of something I just have to put it down, however it might turn out.  It's a compulsion!


End file.
